Staff during labour and birth

8.7/10

About the same

Being left aloneNot being left alone by midwives or doctors at a time when it worried them

7.1/10

About the same

Raising concernsConcerns being taken seriously once raised

7.6/10

About the same

Attention during labourIf attention was needed during labour and birth, a member of staff helped them within a reasonable amount of time

8.6/10

About the same

Clear communicationBeing spoken to during labour and birth, in a way they could understand

9.6/10

About the same

Involvement in decisionsBeing involved enough in decisions about their care during labour and birth

8.4/10

About the same

Respect and dignityBeing treated with respect and dignity during labour and birth

9.6/10

About the same

Confidence and trustHaving confidence and trust in the staff caring for them during labour and birth

9.2/10

About the same

Care in hospital after the birth

7.5/10

About the same

Length of hospital stayFeeling the stay in hospital after the birth was the right amount of time

7.4/10

About the same

Delay in dischargeDischarge from hospital being delayed

5.0/10

About the same

Reasonable response time after birthIf attention was needed after the birth, a member of staff helped within a reasonable amount of time

7.5/10

About the same

Information and explanationsReceiving the information and explanations they needed after the birth

7.7/10

About the same

Kind and understanding careBeing treated with kindness and understanding by staff after the birth

8.6/10

About the same

Partner length of stayThat their partner who was involved in their care was able to stay with them as much as they wanted

7.0/10

About the same

Cleanliness of room or wardThinking the hospital room or ward was clean

8.9/10

About the same

About these scores

Questions are grouped under the section in which they appear in the questionnaire.

We asked people to answer questions about different aspects of their care and treatment. Based on their responses, we gave each NHS trust a score out of 10 for each question (the higher the score the better).

Each trust also received a rating of ‘About the same’, ‘Better’ or ‘Worse’.

Better: the trust is better for that particular question compared to most other trusts that took part in the survey.

About the same: the trust is performing about the same for that particular question as most other trusts that took part in the survey.

Worse: the trust did not perform as well for that particular question compared to most other trusts that took part in the survey.

Where a section score is not present (‘overall score unavailable’) this is due to a question(s) being missing from that section ‘(score unavailable’) meaning that no section score can be produced. Questions are missing due to there being too few people answering the question. Please still click on the + sign to expand the section and see the results of the questions that were included.

Where the number of answers we received was too low (less than 30 respondents) we cannot report results. This is because the uncertainty around the result is too great.

We do not provide a single overall rating for each NHS Trust. This would be misleading as the survey assesses a number of different aspects of people’s experiences (such as ‘staff’ and ‘care in hospital after the birth’) and trust performance varies across these different aspects. The structure of the questionnaire also means that there are a different number of questions in each section. It is better to look at the trusts in your area and see how they perform across the aspects that are most important to you.

We have only presented here the results for the labour and birth section of the questionnaire. When answering questions in the survey about labour and birth, we can be confident that in all cases women were referring to the acute trust from which they were sampled. The survey also asked women about their experiences of antenatal and postnatal care to cover the entire pregnancy and birth for completeness. However, some women who gave birth at an acute trust may not have received their antenatal and postnatal care from that same trust. This could be due to one of several reasons, such as: having moved home; having to travel for more specialist care; or due to variation in the provision of services across the country.

Inspection ratings

We rate most services according to how safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led they are, using four levels:

Outstanding – the service is performing exceptionally well.

Good – the service is performing well and meeting our expectations.

Requires improvement – the service isn't performing as well as it should and we have told the service how it must improve.

Inadequate – the service is performing badly and we've taken enforcement action against the provider of the service.

No rating/under appeal/rating suspended – there are some services which we can’t rate, while some might be under appeal from the provider. Suspended ratings are being reviewed by us and will be published soon.

Ticks and crosses

We don't rate every type of service. For services we haven't rated we use ticks and crosses to show whether we've asked them to take further action or taken enforcement action against them.

There's no need for the service to take further action. If this service has not had a CQC inspection since it registered with us, our judgement may be based on our assessment of declarations and evidence supplied by the service.

The service must make improvements.

At least one standard in this area was not being met when we inspected the service and we have taken enforcement action.